


1997

by transdimensional_void



Series: I Know You Better Than You Fake It [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 90's Music, Blood, First Kiss, Fluff, Goth!Dan, M/M, Nerd!phil, Slight Violence, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 03:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4904380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transdimensional_void/pseuds/transdimensional_void
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil is just a nerd who is too scared to walk past the cigarette-smoking goth boy on the street corner, or nerd!Phil and goth!Dan are true 90′s kids (featuring the musical stylings of Tool and The Smashing Pumpkins)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1997

**Author's Note:**

  * For [galaxylily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxylily/gifts).



When school had let out a short while ago, Phil’s only emotion had been relief at finally being free for the weekend. Now all that stood between him and his Nintendo 64 was the short walk home. Yet the farther from school he got, the more of his relief was being replaced by uneasiness.

 

There was honestly no good reason for him to feel so nervous. It wasn’t like anyone had ever hassled him on his walk home before. Despite the fact that he was the exact definition of terms like “nerd” and “goody two shoes,” no one had ever thought it worth the trouble. He wasn’t exactly the sort that most people took notice of.

 

No, he wasn’t scared of getting beat up or anything. And scared wasn’t even the right word for it… Apprehensive, more like? Really, just…cautious. Yeah, he was just feeling cautious because the goth boy had been stood on the street corner in the same spot every Friday for two months now, leaning against the brick side of a shop and pulling a drag from his cigarette… And to Phil he seemed… unpredictable. Unpredictable could mean dangerous, and Phil simply wasn’t the risk-taking sort. So he was being cautious.

 

Being cautious meant keeping his head bowed and his eyes fixed on the ground and hugging his books tightly against his chest. It meant making himself as small and unnoticeable as possible in hopes that once again he would manage to escape the boy’s attention.

 

So as he rounded the corner and saw that, yes, the boy with long, dyed-black hair tucked behind his ears and black lipstick on his lips and black eyeliner ringing his eyes was indeed leaning there in the usual place, Phil lowered his head and hunched his shoulders and tried to think invisible thoughts.

 

Which was how he ended up running head first into what could only be described as a solid wall of muscle.

 

“What the fuck you think you’re doing, ya little cunt?” yelled an angry voice from just inches above him.

 

Phil’s head snapped back, and he found himself looking straight up into the quickly-purpling face of a very, very large man. A very, very large man with muscles that didn’t look like muscles so much as they looked like massive boulders that had just tumbled from a cliff face.

 

A second later, he felt hands shoving against his shoulders, and he was toppling down onto the gritty pavement, his books scattering everywhere.

 

“You got shit for brains or something? Watch where you’re fucking going!” the man-mountain was screaming down at him from a dizzying height. He saw huge, clenched fists and was pretty sure one of them would be connecting with his face in very short order.

 

Phil was too dazed to properly see what happened next. He mostly had an impression of a blur of black flashing past him and then the man-mountain making angry, squawking noises. Then there was a loud, crunching sound, and the man with the massive muscles let out a scream that made Phil’s blood freeze in his veins.

 

“Fucking shit! You crazy motherfucker! What the fuck!”

 

Phil looked up, and what his wide eyes saw was the boy in black yanking back one bloody fist from the man-mountain’s blood-splattered nose and raising the other one for another go.

 

_Crap crap crap crap crap_ , went Phil’s internal monologue. Not even bothering with the books he’d dropped, he leapt to his feet, took the boy’s black-clad arm in a firm grasp, and began to run. He felt resistance for a split second before the boy started running with him.

 

They ran until Phil’s lungs burned and he felt like his side was being stabbed with a knife and then finally he decided that he was more likely to die from continuing to run than from the man-mountain catching up with them. He dropped the boy’s arm at last and doubled over, clutching his knees in his palms and wheezing loudly.

 

It was a good thirty seconds before his vision cleared enough to look over at the boy in black and see that he was in worse shape than Phil. He was sprawled out on the grass at Phil’s feet, his fingers with their black-painted nails clutched over his heaving chest and his eyes squeezed shut tight. Phil snorted. Served him right for smoking so much.

 

Phil raised his head then and cast a glance around. They were in some sort of small park. He didn’t recognize it. In fact, nothing around here looked familiar. The apprehensive feeling from earlier returned suddenly, ten-fold. Cautiously, he shrugged off his backpack and crouched down in the grass next to the other boy.

 

“Hey,” he said, leaning just the slightest bit forward. He was still afraid to get too close. There was drying blood on the knuckles of the boy’s left hand, dark against the white of the boy’s skin.

 

One of the boy’s black-rimmed eyes popped open, and Phil was startled by how warm a brown it was. He hadn't properly looked the boy in the eye before, and he’d just assumed his eyes were as black as everything else.

 

“Hey,” the boy huffed. “You all right?”

 

Phil nodded. His bum felt a little sore from landing on the hard pavement, but other than that he was unscathed.

 

“Er, how’s your hand?” He gestured with his chin toward the boy’s hand where it lay upon the black fabric of his t-shirt.

 

The boy opened both eyes and raised the hand up in front of them. He gave it an experimental flex and winced.

 

“Bruised the fuck out of it, but I don’t think anything’s broken,” he muttered. His accent was smooth and southern, and Phil thought it a strange fit for his creepy appearance.

 

He sat in silence for a minute, watching the boy examine his hand from different angles.

 

“Th-thank you. I guess,” Phil gathered the courage to say at last. “For, erm, intervening.”

 

The boy turned his head then, hitting Phil with the full force of his gaze, and Phil had to look away.

 

“You looked like you were about to be pulverized. Why weren’t you watching where you were going anyway?”

 

Prickly heat spread across Phil’s cheeks and up the skin of his back.

 

“Oh, er,” he mumbled, “I was, er, thinking about something else.”

 

“Yeah you were,” the boy agreed and then sat up all of a sudden. “I’m Daniel,” he said, holding out his intact hand toward Phil, who noticed for the first time that the other boy was wearing fishnet fingerless gloves that went all the way up his arms.

 

Phil blinked at the boy’s hand in confusion for just a moment. Did goths shake hands? Well, this one did apparently.

 

“Oh, hi,” he said, taking Daniel’s hand and giving it a couple of firm shakes. “I’m Philip— Phil, rather. I prefer Phil.”

 

“Well, don’t call me Dan,” Daniel said, retracting his hand and fixing Phil with a glare, “Or Danny boy or anything stupid like that.”

 

“I won’t,” Phil rushed to assure him. “Er,” and he gave another nervous glance around, “do you know where we are?”

 

“Yeah, we’re near mine,” Daniel said, pushing up off the ground and brushing grass from the back of his black, wide-legged jeans. He bent down to offer Phil a hand. “Wanna come over?”

 

Phil could only stare up at him in mute awe. Couldn’t he see Phil’s plastic-rimmed glasses, his hideously unfashionable stonewashed jeans, his unflatteringly baggy t-shirt? Did he not realize that Phil was the least cool of the uncool kids?

 

“Would you rather go back and face The Thing’s wrath instead?” Daniel asked, raising his thin, drawn-on brows and holding his hand out a little further.

 

“No. I guess not,” Phil said, taking the offered hand and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. He bent and slung his backpack up onto his shoulder again. “I don’t suppose any of my books will still be there anyway.”

 

“Doubt it,” Daniel shrugged and led the way out through the park’s wrought-iron gate.

 

They walked in silence for two blocks, Phil a pace behind, afraid to even look at the other boy’s face. He knew that any minute now Daniel would come to his senses and realize that being seen with Phil was nothing less than social suicide. What could the two of them possibly have in common?

 

Nevertheless, a few minutes later they were pushing through a low gate into a tiny garden, and then Daniel was unlocking the battered front door of a small row house and ushering him inside.

 

The place was dark and smelled strongly of stale cigarette, and Phil’s virgin lungs began protesting at once. He told his lungs to shut up and live a little and slipped inside as the other boy pulled the door shut behind them.

 

“So, this is my house,” Daniel waved a careless hand around them as he led Phil up the narrow corridor. “It’s a hell hole, but at least I can leave when I turn eighteen next year. My room’s this way.” He pointed up a short stair and then, before Phil could give any sort of indication whether he actually wanted to go up to Daniel’s room or not, began climbing. Phil glanced around, catching sight of a couple of archways leading into other rooms that must be the lounge or kitchen or something. It was quiet there, and he guessed Daniel’s family must be out. Assuming he had a family.

 

“You coming?” Daniel had paused at the landing to raise an eyebrow at Phil again.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Phil muttered, hurrying up the stairs behind him. He was trying not to let himself think about the fact that twenty minutes ago he was too afraid to even make eye contact with this boy, and now he was about to be in his bedroom alone with him. A sudden image of Daniel leading him into some sort of den of horrors complete with torture machines and a blood-stained cement floor flashed before Phil’s eyes, and he had to shove down a wave of panic. That sort of stuff only happened in movies…right?

 

When Daniel pushed open a door and Phil found himself in a more-or-less ordinary bedroom, he couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief. It was “more-or-less” ordinary because the room was, predictably, painted entirely black, and there were thick black curtains over the windows blocking out all possible sunlight. The walls were plastered with posters of bands whose names were written out in bright red letters like blood splatters, but other than that it contained the normal bedroom things: dresser, tv, wardrobe, bed. In one corner stood a drum kit, and for the first time Phil started to wonder what sort of person Daniel might be. Could he actually play those?

 

Daniel was crouching down on the floor near the bed and digging something from out of his jeans pocket, so Phil pulled the door shut behind him — was that a good idea? oh well — and settled himself on a patch of carpet near the other boy.

 

“Mind if I smoke?” Daniel was asking, holding up a cigarette and lighter.

 

“Erm…yeah… A bit?” Phil squeaked. Crap. Why did he have to be literally the least cool teenager ever to exist?

 

But Daniel just shrugged and slid the cigarette back into its box. He kept the lighter out, though, giving it a few experimental flicks on and off while studying Phil with that same concentrated gaze that Phil had been unable to meet earlier.

 

Phil shivered.

 

“So, Phil, what music do you listen to?”

 

The goth boy was still flicking the lighter off and on. Off and on. Off and on.

 

“Er,” Phil said because he suddenly couldn’t think of a single song he liked that wouldn’t seem massively dorky when mentioned aloud in front of Daniel.

 

“Whatever it is, it’s probably utter bollocks. You look like you’d listen to Savage Garden or some sappy drivel like that,” Daniel opined, tossing the lighter aside and reaching for a CD player with a pair of massive headphones plugged into it. “Don’t worry, though. I’m going to educate you.”

 

Phil could only stare on as Daniel flicked through a crate full of — surprisingly neatly arranged — CDs. He pulled one out and gave it satisfied nod.

 

“This album is essential,” he said, popping open the CD player and sliding the CD inside. Phil caught a glimpse of the art on it — a naked man contorted into some sort of weird position — before Daniel snapped the lid closed on it and held the earphones out to him. “This will knock that poppy shit right out of your head.”

 

“Okay,” Phil said and slid the cushiony headphones over his ears. A moment later, distorted guitar notes were picking out a rough melody before suddenly being subsumed into a crash of distortion guitar and cymbal-heavy drumming. 

 

“Ouch,” Phil said, his eyes actually watering from the pain of the onslaught his eardrums were undergoing. He looked over at Daniel and saw that his black-painted lips were raised in a slight smirk.

 

_You’ll get used to it_ , he mouthed. Phil noticed that the smirk had opened a deep dimple in the boy’s left cheek. His eyes shifted away again.

 

There was a man singing into Phil’s ears now, in a strangely beautiful voice, something about overstimulation and pain and pleasure, and Phil felt that prickling heat crawling over his skin again. He was sure his cheeks were completely red by now.

 

He glanced over at Daniel again and saw that the smirk was gone. In its place there was an intensely-focused expression on his pale face, his disturbingly bright eyes fixed on Phil like he was listening attentively to something Phil was saying.

 

“Relax. Turn around, and take my hand,” sang the voice in his ears before the music ended in a blister of feedback and high-pitched distortion. Daniel seemed to come out of his trance then, leaning over and quickly hitting the pause button before bending towards Phil and prying the headphones from his ears.

 

“What did you think?” he asked, and Phil was taken aback by the eagerness on the other boy’s formerly blasé face.

 

“What band was that?” Phil returned, still trying to gather his thoughts. He had no idea what was happening or why he was just letting it happen. What was he even doing here?

 

“Tool,” Daniel said, pulling the CD out and clicking it carefully back into its case before rummaging around in the crate again. “Absolute musical genius,” he added.

 

“It was kind of…” Phil paused, trying to think of any description other than “loud.” He gave up eventually and just said, “I think I liked it. That guy has a nice voice.”

 

“Yeah,” Daniel nodded slowly, not looking up from his CD collection. “It’s almost feminine? You could even describe it as, I dunno, pretty? It’s such an interesting contrast with the music, you know what I mean?”

 

Phil nodded. He couldn’t have quite put that into words, but he saw what the other boy meant.

 

“Okay, maybe that was a bit too much to start you off with. I think this might be more your speed,” Daniel was saying as he pulled another CD from its case and slid it into the player. Phil caught a glimpse of some kind of sad, blue baby face printed on it before the CD disappeared from sight.

 

Daniel leaned forward and slipped the headphones over his ears for him this time, and it struck Phil how slow and gentle the movement was. The other boy was bent close to him, and he caught a whiff of some kind of cologne mixed with the scent of his cigarettes. He wasn’t sure why, but the thought of breathing in Daniel’s scent made his heart rate suddenly pick up.

 

Then Daniel was settling back again and pressing play, and a familiar series of staticky loops began to play in his ears. He had heard this song on the radio before, though he’d never listened closely and he didn’t know the name of it.

 

It was a melancholy mid-tempo song, heavy on the guitar with a steady beat. The singer’s voice had just a slight roughness to it that he thought he liked.

 

Daniel was staring at him again, and he couldn’t stop himself staring back. He hadn’t really noticed it beneath all the black and mysterious brooding before, but the boy sitting across from him was kind of gorgeous.

 

“On a live wire right up off the street you and I should meet,” the voice in his ear was singing.

 

And then Daniel was leaning towards him again, and before he quite knew what was happening,the other boy’s lips were pressing against his, and he could definitely smell his cologne and the cigarettes and a hint of sweat, and he’d never kissed anyone before, but the feeling of Daniel’s lips moving against his was pretty much perfect.

 

“We don’t even care, as restless as we are,” the voice in his ear was crooning, and Daniel was pushing him down against the carpet and climbing on top of him. He could feel fingers in his hair, and the thought occurred to him that one of Daniel’s hands still had some random dude’s blood dried onto it. But then the thought passed, and all he could think about was the sad song fading away in his ears and the pale boy crouched above him trailing black kiss marks down his throat.

 

Somewhere outside a car door slammed, and they both jumped. Daniel pulled away at once, and Phil was shocked to see a blush crimsoning his white cheeks. Wiping the black smears from around his mouth with the back of one hand, Daniel just stared at him. Phil pushed the headphones off his ears and sat up again, biting his lip. He could taste something unfamiliar there and guessed it was the other boy’s lipstick.

 

“I’m sorry. Shit,” Daniel was muttering, his gaze dropping down to the carpet. “You just looked so beautiful for a moment, like the song was making you really feel something, and it just made me want to kiss you.”

 

Phil swallowed hard, mostly to buy himself time while he tried to think of something to say. Somehow he had ended up sitting in the scary goth boy’s scary goth bedroom tasting his scary goth lipstick on his lips, and he was thinking about the fact that no one had ever called him beautiful before.

 

“You, erm, really like music, don’t you?”

 

_No, Phil. That is the stupidest thing you could possibly say to someone who’s just kissed you. Idiot._

 

Daniel let out a huff of laughter through his nose and leaned back against the side of his bed.

 

“Yeah, I guess,” he shrugged.

 

“What song was that, that I was just listening to?” Phil continued, feeling like he was scrambling to take control of the conversation again.

 

“Smashing Pumpkins. 1979,” Daniel said. He still wasn’t looking at Phil. Instead, he continued rubbing at the edges of his lips, though he’d already cleared off all the smudges.

 

“Hey,” Phil said, and the other boy’s hand stopped moving. “It’s okay. I…don’t mind that you kissed me. Er, I should probably tell you, though… That was my first kiss.”

 

“Whoa, really?” Daniel’s eyes snapped back to Phil’s face, the black rim around them becoming almost a perfect circle in his surprise. “How old are you?”

 

“Eighteen,” Phil said, feeling the blush return to his cheeks. Great. Now the goth boy knew the full extent of his social ineptitude.

 

“Whoa,” Daniel said again. “Er, I guess I’m honored then. Huh.”

 

There was a long silence after that, and it was beginning to stretch into awkward, so Phil wracked his brain for something to say. At last he came up with,

 

“I really liked that song, too. It was…sort of wistful?”

 

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed, nodding slowly. “Yeah, I think that’s a good word for it. He’s so caught up in this nostalgia for 1979 because he was young then, but us, I mean, we weren’t even born yet. Well, I wasn’t.”

 

“I was born that year,” Phil interjected.

 

“Yeah, exactly,” Daniel sat up a little straighter as he warmed to his theme. “It’s such a wistful song because he’s aching for this thing that a lot of people don’t even remember, you know? And then some day people are going to look back on this year the same way. Like, some day you and I are going to look back on 1997 and feel nostalgic about being teenagers. And, you know, some kid is going to be born this year who looks back on it and thinks of it as the distant past. Like, it’s just an incredible coincidence that two people like you and me just happened to be born at the right time to appreciate the same time periods together, you know what I mean?” Daniel was leaning all the way forward now, his hands clasped around his knees and his eyes shining brightly.

 

Phil suddenly understood exactly what Daniel had meant earlier when he’d said Phil had looked so beautiful that he wanted to kiss him. So, he sat up on his knees and bent forward and pressed his lips against the other boy’s again.

 

When Phil leant away, Daniel was regarding him with an almost dazed expression.

 

“Thanks,” he murmured, his voice low and rough.

 

Phil smiled.

 

“You’re nothing like I thought you would be,” he mused as he sat back on his heels again.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

Phil shrugged, hoping he hadn’t offended Daniel. His expression mostly looked curious, so he didn’t think he had.

 

“I just thought that goth kids were all, like, obsessed with death and blood and Marilyn Manson—“

 

“Marilyn Manson is a fucking gift to the world,” the other boy interrupted him with a fiery expression. “People just judge him because of how he looks, you know, but have you ever watched an interview with him or anything? He’s, like, the nicest person ever.”

 

Phil stared at Daniel for a moment and then just shook his head, laughing softly to himself.

 

“I changed my mind. You’re exactly like I thought you would be.”

 

“Oh?” Daniel asked, one slender eyebrow rising again. “And how’s that?”

 

“Unpredictable,” Phil answered and reached up to wipe the black stains from his lips.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr


End file.
